All Projects

This project targets retrofit stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) on public land to assist partnering Local Government Units (LGUs) achieve water quality goals identified in local stormwater plans. The Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) provides technical assistance and distributes Clean Water Funding (CWF) to leverage local funding through its time-proven Stormwater Retrofit Partnership (Partnership) cost share program.

This project is a continuation of the Dakota County Community Initiative, which has received Clean Water Funds in 2012 and 2013. It will provide cost share funding to organizations and associations who voluntarily construct medium sized water quality best management practices (BMPs) in Dakota County.

This project will use the Dakota County Soil and Water Conservation District's existing Conservation Initiative Funding program to provide technical assistance and monetary incentives for targeted, medium-sized projects such as raingardens, bioinfiltration, biofiltration, bioswales, shoreline stabilizations, and other best management practices (BMPs). Project proposals will be solicited from faith based organizations, homeowner associations, school organizations, lake associations, and others that own or manage large areas of land.

The Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization, in partnership with the City of Burnsville, is planning an overall improvement in the Alimagnet Lake subwatershed that consists retrofit two existing stormwater ponds that drain to Alimagnet Lake, a nutrient impaired water, with iron-enhanced sand filter benches. It is estimated that a significant amount of phosphorus reduction will be achieved by implementing this project, bringing Alimagnet Lake closer to state water quality standards.

As part of the Dakota County Transportation Department's highway 78 road reconstruction project, the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization is partnering with Dakota County to install a nitrate treatment practice on a tributary to the South Branch Vermillion River adjacent to the road. The South Branch Vermillion River subwatershed is the highest nitrate loading subwatershed in the Vermillion River Watershed and is a significant contributor to contaminated drinking water in the eastern portion of the watershed.

South Creek is a tributary to the Vermillion River and a DNR-designated trout stream. Currently, the creek is not meeting state water quality standards for sediment, temperature and dissolved oxygen The Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization and the City of Lakeville propose to retrofit an existing stormwater pipe with a hydrodynamic separator to reduce the sediment load reaching South Creek and the Vermillion River. One hydrodynamic separator will be installed and is estimated to reduce sediment loads to South Creek and the Vermillion River by 4 tons per year.

The Vermillion River Watershed JPO is partnering with Dakota County and the City of Lakeville to enhance stormwater management along County Road 50. A treatment train approach with an iron-enhanced sand filter at the tail end to remove dissolved phosphorus will be implemented to treat a drainage area including a portion of the upstream neighborhoods that currently receive little to no stormwater treatment. The practice is anticipated to reduce 20 pounds of phosphorus annually from reaching Lake Marion, a water resource with high recreational value targeted for protection.

South Creek, a tributary to the Vermillion River and a DNR-designated trout stream. Currently, the creek is not meeting state water quality standards for sediment, temperature and dissolved oxygen and it flows through a large stormwater basin in the City of Lakeville. The Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization, in partnership with the city, propose to create a new channel for the creek in order to separate it from the pond. The result would be significantly cooler temperatures, increased dissolved oxygen, and less sediment-laden water in South Creek.

The AgBMP Loan Program provides needed funding for local implementation of clean water practices at an extremely low cost, is unique in its structure and is not duplicated by any other source of funding.The AgBMP loan program provides 3% loans through local lenders to farmers, rural landowners, and agriculture supply businesses.

Peer Engineering, Inc. (Peer) will evaluate and recommend to MPCA groundwater monitoring staff prospective sites/locations for the installation of groundwater monitoring wells to evaluate contaminant/pollutant concentrations from various sources. Peer will oversee the installation of monitoring wells by retaining a state drilling contractor or preparing bid documents to retain well driller through the Department of Administration. Superfund staff will assist in the project by providing oversight of contractual requirements and provide technical assistance as needed.

Once thought to have an essentially inexhaustible groundwater supply, Minnesotans are now realizing our rates of use are regionally unsustainable. Recent advanced modeling by the MN DNR and Metropolitan Council of aquifer supplies, in conjunction with predicted demand, indicate the major metropolitan area aquifers are currently subject to extraction rates that exceed recharge. Simply stated, we are mining our groundwater.

The Conservation Dashboard will provide the Carlton Soil and Water Conservation District, its water plan, and local landowners a system to target, prioritize, and measure resource needs and effective conservation implementation within the subwatersheds of Carlton County. The Dashboard will identify where data gaps exist, translate the data in a way that partners and landowners easily understand, and insert Best Management Practice recommendations onto the county webmapping tool, used by citizens.

Duluth area streams received over 10 inches of rainfall on June 19 and June 20, 2012. This "500 year event" provides a once in a lifetime opportunity to further understand sediment movement and stream channel alterations due to an event of this magnitude.

This project will consist of identifying the candidate causes of biological stress and to develop and implement a public and stakeholder participation process that encourages local ownership of water quality problems and solutions. The Stressor ID process will be done using existing data, identifying data gaps, gathering new data, developing load duration curves, and refinement of the candidate causes. The civic engagement work will include compiling and reviewing existing data on community capacity and assessing that information.

This project will provide fiscal resources for South St. Louis County Soil and Water Conservation District (SSLCSWCD) to participate and lead efforts to attain geomorphic data sets, dissolved oxygen assessments, culvert inventory, and civic engagement activities in three major watersheds, Nemadji River, South Lake Superior and St. Louis River. This work is currently being worked on as a part of the MPCA’s Watershed Restoration and Protection Planning efforts.

This project will build network and the skill set of local resource professionals to do effective civic engagement work for water restoration and protection in Southeast Minnesota. The cohort will be administered through the Southeast Minnesota Water Resources Board (SE MN WRB) which is an area wide Joint Powers Board (JPB) established to help improve and protect the water resources of the area through coordinating local water planning efforts. This JPB has successfully administered water quality grants in the past that have positively impacted the water resources of this region.

The MPCA, in partnership with the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization, contracted with Wenck Associates, Inc., to develop the Stressor Identification (SID) Report; and develop the necessary models for the Vermillion River Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) as part of Phase I. The final Vermillion River Watershed SID report discusses all of the analysis that was done in the watershed to identify the primary stressors causing the fish and macroinvertebrate impairments in the watershed.

The Discovery Farms program is a farmer-led effort to gather information on soil and nutrient loss on farms in different settings across Minnesota. The mission of Discovery Farms Minnesota is to gather water quality information under real-world conditions.

The Drinking Water Contaminants of Emerging Concern (CEC) program identifies environmental contaminants for which current health-based standards currently do not exist or need to be updated, investigate the potential for human exposure to these chemicals, and develop guidance values for drinking water. Contaminants evaluated by CEC staff include contaminants that have been released or detected in Minnesota waters (surface water and groundwater) or that have the potential to migrate to or be detected in Minnesota waters.

This project is the continuation of efforts to restore and protect watersheds and streams in Minnesota’s Lake Superior coastal region. The project provides the means to evaluate water quality impairments, complete pollutant source assessments, establish loading capacities and allocations for impairments, and to evaluate and recommend protection strategies for high quality water resources. It also leverages and encourages adoption of locally driven solutions to watershed management and protection.

The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate, and validate one fine-scale Hydrological Simulation Program FORTRAN (HSPF) watershed model for the Duluth Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) project area for the simulation period 1995–2012. In addition, an existing condition (post-2012 flood) model scenario will be developed for use in WRAPS development. The contractor will produce HSPF models that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter TMDLs.

The City of Inver Grove Heights will remove PAH contaminated sediment from the 79th Street Pond. Approximately 2,300 cubic yards of sediment will be dredged and disposed of at the Pine Bend Landfill located in the City of Inver Grove Heights.

The City of Waconia will implement its 2012-13 Storm Pond Cleaning Project and 2012 Improvement Project which includes removal and disposal of more than 2,200 cubic yards of PAH contaminated sediment from 3 stormwater ponds. The contaminated sediment will be disposed of in the Waste Management industrial landfill located in Burnsville, MN.

The goal of this project is to construct, calibrate, and validate three HSPF watershed models. The project will result in HSPF models that can readily be used to provide information to support conventional parameter TMDLs. The models are expected to generate predicted output timeseries for hydrology, sediment, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen which are consistent with available sets of observed data.

Demand for Engineering services in Northeast Minnesota's nine-county Area III Technical Service Area is exceeding the capacity to deliver the needed services. There are increased requests from Soil and Water Conservation Districts for engineering needed to design and install Best Management Practices in part due to requests related to Clean Water Fund projects. These funds will be used to hire an engineer, which will increase engineering capacity and result in the completion of at least five additional projects per year.

This project will gather watershed data necessary for the development of a comprehensive watershed management plan with parameter-specific thresholds that will maintain or improve water quality for the Kawishiwi Watershed.

King Park, a city-owned park in Lakeville, consists of baseball fields, a park building, and a parking lot. A portion of Dodd Blvd, a driveway, and the parking lot drain to a stormwater pond at the north end of the park where water is retained, treated, and reused to irrigate two ball fields. This stormwater reuse project was constructed by the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization (VRWJPO) and the City of Lakeville in 2010 to meet VRWJPO and city goals.

When completed, this Lake County-wide culvert inventory project will have multiple direct benefits to water quality protection, natural resource planning, and municipal asset protection. This inventory will be used to provide local and state authorities accurate information on the condition of road crossings, better calibrate hydrological modeling tools crucial to the inter-agency Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategies (WRAPS) process, and assess how road crossings in Lake County are affecting the water and sediment transport capacity of our waterways.

The consultant LimnoTech will support response to Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) comments the peer review process, United States Environmental Protection Agency and public notice. They will then revise the TMDL document as needed and attend internal and external project meetings.

Improved levels of civic engagement and community participation in support for the Watershed Restoration and Protection Strategy (WRAPS) processes in the St. Louis River, Lake Superior South, and Cloquet River Watersheds. Monitoring plans and compiled field data will be provided and summarized that will aid in the future completion of Total Maximum Daily Load Reports (TMDLs) in these watersheds and in the Lake Superior North Watershed.

LEQA is a Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) program to help livestock producers address, using a non-regulatory approach, the unique water quality issues on their farms. The MDA has contracted with Ag Resource Strategies, LLC, to recruit farmers to enroll in the LEQA program. The company trains technicians to assess different areas of each farms, such as the farmstead, livestock facilities, fields and wooded areas. The technicians then develop an environmental assessment and identify financial assistance for these projects.

St. Louis County's Comprehensive Water Management Plan Update 2010-2020 identifies providing financial assistance to qualifying homeowners to upgrade or replace failing septic systems as a Priority 2 action. Funds from the FY-16 Clean Water Fund Projects and Practices Grant will be used to provide funding to low-income homeowners to repair or replace SSTS identified as Imminent Threat to Public Health (ITPH) within the following watersheds: Lake Superior South, St.

Ensuring natural resource practitioners are applying state-of-the-art approaches is the best way to achieve optimum Best Management Practice (BMP) selection, design, and placement in the landscape, thereby maximizing Clean Water Fund (CWF) benefits. To that end, it is critical to train new staff, create modeling protocols for new BMPs, refine and calibrate models, and test ever-advancing modeling applications.